Round Bay, St John, USVI.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 27 Feb 2014 23:20

18:20.26N 64:40.5W

 

 

Tues, Wed & Thurs – 25th, 26th & 27th Feb

 

Tuesday and Wednesday were largely boat maintenance days with Sarah being by far the most energetic with washing and then polishing the entire hull which is hard enough at the best of times, but doing this whilst stood in a dinghy as the boat gently rolls is epic. So much so, that Carol and Bill from Doodlebug (USA) felt compelled to dinghy over to congratulate her and find out where she got her training….

 

For a change of scene I chose to snorkel up the eastern side of the bay and out past the first headland and into the cove that was the site of a big NASSA testing site in 1969.  Here 4 ‘aquanauts’ lived in a special underwater lab for 60 days. (More about this later) but my reward as I reached the clearer deeper waters was to come face to face with a shark! He was apparently not the least bit interested in me and since I did not have the camera with me, I chose the flight option and headed back into the bay. I did not identify this one, but we have since been told that they present no problems to humans round here because they are so well fed by the natural resources available.  Easy to say when you are not at the outer range of your swimming limit and alone.

 

On Wednesday we went for a walk up to the Virgin Islands Environmental Resource Station which is a remarkable project utilising the old camp and buildings erected by the military in 1969 to service the underwater lab experiment in Lameshur Bay. The site had only been active for the one year and then revitalised when a second and much bigger research project was started in the 70’s and this had teams of divers living for two weeks at a time in a new and bigger underwater lab testing equipment and undertaking various studies. Now the camp has been revamped yet again, staffed by volunteers and it uses the same temporary buildings erected in 1969 and houses students from schools, colleges and universities in a whole series of environmental studies and educational projects. We were given the tour and were very taken by the sheer enthusiasm of our guide as well as learning a great deal about the origins of the camp.

 

We returned to go snorkelling off Yawzi point again and had a great time and encountered no sharks although someone did mention earlier that he had just seen the biggest barracuda ever! In the early evening Bill and Carol on Doodlebug invited us over to see round their Norhavn 46 and we did not get back to Serafina until nearly 2100 hours!

 

On Thursday we headed off round to Coral Bay which is a small town further round to the east of the island. But first we had to untangle the mooring lines to the mooring buoy that during the night of light winds had managed to knot itself up magnificently!  The wind had gone further south than forecast and so we were apprehensive about Coral Bay as it seemed that the full rollers would be piling straight into it, but on arrival it was better than we had feared, although it was still not an ideal overnight stop. But we had not planned to stay here, but just nip ashore and get some groceries and find a good wifi signal as we had some important things to do which required a fast service.

 

Coral Bay is caught in a time warp and resembles a 60’s hippy commune with boats!  There are very few visiting boats as such, but clearly a big community of rather shabby liveaboard boats of various shapes and sizes. In addition there are any number of half sunk and abandoned craft lying submerged in the shallows and the whole place has an air of abandonment and disinterest.  The only dinghy dock is at the north eastern  end of the bay and about half a mile or so walk from the ‘town’.  There is a little gaggle of tourist shops and a bar & restaurant ‘Skinny Legs’ which looked busy but we headed off into the little town looking for the shops etc.

 

Not a great trip as there was just the one ‘grocery’ store but it was pretty expensive and not much use to us.  We did however find very good internet and enjoyed a lovely lunch at ‘Aqua Bistro’ before walking back to the dock and returning to Serafina. It is a sad place which has clearly seen better days and it is easy to see why the place has so few visiting yachts.

 

We then sailed over to Round Bay and found ourselves almost completely alone in this nice flat and protected spot. Hard to believe that only a few miles away is Norman Island (BVI’s) which is always packed with boats day and night.